Return of the Pine Siskin

“It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.”

~ Richard Louv

Today (1/11/23) the first Pine Siskin of the season showed up at our thistle feeder. I was reading aloud to my daughter from one of her schoolbooks, when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a very stripy brown bird about the size of a goldfinch. Could it be? I thought, then, just as quickly, dismissed the thought. We’ve had so many house-finch visitors, and time and again I had mistaken the female of the species for a Pine Siskin. I wasn’t willing to be fooled again.

Then, my daughter, who could somehow read my mind, said, “Mom, I don’t think that’s a house finch. It has a very pointy beak.”

I grabbed my binoculars from the basket beside the couch to confirm what she already knew. “That’s a Pine Siskin!” I shouted. “First of the season.”

My son came running into the kitchen to see. “I’ll add it to this year’s list!” he said.

If only my kids got this excited about book reports and long division, I thought.

On the other hand, their enthusiasm about our bird visitor made perfect sense. What could be more meaningful to a child than observing cause-and-effect—in this case, the results of our weekly bird-feeding chores—right outside the kitchen window?

***

Several years ago, we learned that goldfinches are primarily thistle-seed eaters, so when winter arrived, we bought a thistle feeder and waited. The goldfinches weren’t the only ones who showed up. Mixed in with the flock of goldfinches were birds that looked a lot like them, but much stripier.

“Are they juveniles?” we asked, then consulted our Sibley’s field guide to learn that Juvenile goldfinches have a similar shape and plumage, but aren’t stripey.

Flipping through the section on finches, our three heads pressed together over the pages, we came to a bird that looked just like the one perched on our thistle feeder. “Common but nomadic,” I read from the section on Status and Habits. “Found in open coniferous or mixed forests where it feeds on buds and seeds of alders, birches, pines, hemlocks, and other trees…”

Fascinated by this new visitor, we consulted a variety of field guides, as well as the Cornell Lab’s http://allaboutbirds.org to discover that the pine siskin is an “irruptive species”—a term for a species of bird that travels south in winter when there is a poor pinecone crop in the northern boreal forest. Not only was this bird a rare visitor, but when she didn’t have what she needed up north, she found it here, in our forest, and at our feeder.

It’s hard to describe the feelings of gratitude and responsibility that washed over us that day. Gratitude—because of all the spots the Pine Siskin could have chosen, she chose our home. Responsibility—not only to keep our feeder stocked and clean, but also, to assess the health and number of “alders, birches, pines, hemlocks, and other trees” in our woods, to learn about them, and to steward them.

***

I hope that the return of the Pine Siskin to our forest and feeder is evidence that we have been careful stewards of our land. It sure appears to have inspired my kids to learn about the symbiotic relationship between our forest and the creatures who rely on it for sustenance and protection.

And, most importantly, to protect it.